Page 117 of Six Wild Crowns

As Seymour makes her way through the palace, she hears the light patter of a child’s footsteps coming closer. A moment later,Howard appears, her face taut and her movements even more fluttering than usual.

“Sister!” she calls. Seymour resists the urge to shush her in public, because they are being watched by half the court.

“I am pleased to see you, sister,” Seymour says, surreptitiously squeezing Howard’s arm to warn her to be careful. “I feel so disappointed in the treachery of one of our own. I was on my way to console our dear husband.”

“Oh. Oh yes,” Howard stumbles. “Disappointed.”

Seymour draws Howard as casually as she can into a quieter gallery, where the songbirds in their cages at the windows chirrup loudly enough to mask a conversation. Usually, this place would be populated by the king’s most important advisors, like Wolsey and Cromwell, but they must be in more official meetings, deciding exactly how to deal with Boleyn and her conspirators. In this moment, they have the room almost entirely to themselves, save for two guards at the other end of the space. Nevertheless, Seymour steers Howard to the opposite end of the gallery, where they pretend to be examining a portrait of one of the king’s ancestors.

“Did you get Boleyn’s message?” Seymour asks her quietly.

“Yes. I left Brynd immediately. I only stopped here to change the horses on my way to Plythe, but then I wondered if I should show my face at court as well.”

They stroll to the next painting. This one is of a distant cousin of the king’s – a sullen-looking girl carrying her lap dragon. The guards remain impassive, but Seymour drops her voice even further.

“Have you heard anything about what they’re doing with her?”

Howard shakes her head. “I saw her being put in one of the royal carriages as I was leaving. I tried to find out what was happening, but the guards told me to go away.”

“My friend is trying to find out what’s happening now.”

“We’re going to help her, aren’t we?” They drift to the other side of the gallery. Seymour wants to ask her so many things: why she wants to help Boleyn – is it out of love, or fear? She wants to test whether this is quick courage, the kind of courage she was so slowto find in herself, or whether it’s something built on a firmer foundation.

“We need information,” Seymour says. “But then, yes, of course we’re going to help her.”

“Well, if you need someone to act being a silly little girl, I can do that,” she says.

Seymour smiles. “Actually, that’s exactly what I think we need, sister. That, and your remarkable memory.”

They part ways shortly afterwards – Howard to repair to her rooms and be loudly vocal about her denunciation of Boleyn, and Seymour to talk to the king, if he will admit her.

His chambers are in the very centre of the palace, right at the top, beneath the highest dome of the skep-shaped building. If anyone had wanted to find the most influential men in the kingdom, they could do little better than search the king’s antechambers. As soon as Seymour climbs the wide staircase up to the highest floor, the noise of their scheming assaults her. Her brother is there, albeit in a corner, ignored by all but a few lesser politicians until her guilt or innocence in Boleyn’s schemes has been established.

Wolsey stands beside the doors to the king’s innermost chamber, deep in conversation with a group of churchmen. He peels away from them when he sees Seymour.

“Your Majesty, you travelled here quickly.”

Seymour curtseys to him, allowing her old subservient habits to lead her. “Can you blame me, my lord? My brother told me that I had been very foolish in taking part in the masque as I did. I must confess to my own ignorance, but I had no idea that what Queen Boleyn was doing was so evil. I merely thought that she intended to build bridges between us queens, given how plain she had made her prior dislike of me.”

“Indeed?” Wolsey says, a smirk playing across his face. His companions titter at Seymour’s stupidity.

“I suppose it was foolish, given our history, to think that it could be anything other than a scheme. My brother always says that I am too quick to forgive and too dull to understand the politics of suchmatters. Everyone else, it seems, saw a statement. I merely saw the dragons and heard the music.”

Wolsey pats her on the arm. “Well, it’s a blessing, really. I wouldn’t ever seek to change your… guilelessness. It does you credit.”

You have no idea.

“Do you think the king will see me?” Seymour asks. “I so wish to make sure he’s all right. The betrayal of his most beloved wife. I cannot imagine his devastation. I would be beside myself if someone had manipulated me in such a manner.”

“I believe he is upset, yes. He loves each of his queens greatly and feels betrayals deeply. Permit me to talk to him on your behalf?”

“I would be so grateful.”

She dips a curtsey again, head bowed, and Wolsey shoos the guards aside and enters the chamber. A few moments later, she is ushered in.

Despite being married to the king for a year, Seymour has never been inside this chamber. It is circular and crowned by a glass dome not unlike the one that frames her bedchamber at Hyde, except that hers is underwater and this one is high above it. Most of the chamber is inset with large, panelled windows that look out over the kingdom of Elben: across to the territory of Daven in the north, to Brynd and Hyde in the east, and to Mathmas and Plythe in the west. The only territory it does not spy upon is Cnothan.

The king is standing by one of the east windows, staring out at the Holtwode and, beyond it, Brynd. It is a clear day, and the castle’s towers, leaning out over the coast, are just visible, a grey shadow through haze.

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